Name: Mike Cameron
Rank: 73
Position: CF
Years With White Sox: 1995-1998
Mike Cameron joined the White Sox organization as their 18th round draft choice in the 1991 draft. He made his major league debut on August 27, 1995, going 0-3 in the White Sox 2-1 loss to the Blue Jays at Skydome. He mostly appeared as a defensive replacement during the last month of the season, appearing in 28 games but getting only 38 at bats, hitting an anemic .184.
1996 saw Cameron spend most of the season in Double A Birmingham, getting a small cup of coffee with the White Sox, appearing in 11 games and getting 11 at bats with a grand total of 1 hit.
Cameron got his first extended major league experience in 1997, appearing in 116 games. He hit .259 with 14 home runs, with 23 stolen bases thrown in for good measure. He finished 6th in the AL Rookie of the Year voting.
In 1998, Cameron regressed, as his average dropped nearly 50 points to .210, his home runs were cut nearly in half to 8, and his OPS dropped by nearly 170 points. Following the season, he made his largest contribution to the future success of the White Sox by being traded to the Reds for Paul Konerko.
Cameron’s numbers in a White Sox uniform, both for games I attended and overall, were:
| BA | At Bats | Runs | Hits | RBI | Walks | Strike Outs | Doubles | Triples | HR | SB | GIDP | Errors | Games |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.421 | 19 | 5 | 8 | 6 | 0 | 5 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| 0.229 | 824 | 121 | 189 | 100 | 96 | 224 | 36 | 8 | 23 | 50 | 14 | 9 | 296 |